The technician frowned too. “I don’t understand it, sir. But now it’s up to a hundred and forty feet and still rising.”
“A hundred and forty feet of clear water between us and the bottom of the iceberg?”
“Yes, sir.”
The surface Fathometer was a sophisticated version of the echo sounder that had been used for decades to find the floor of the ocean beneath a submarine. It broadcast high-frequency sound waves upward in a tightly controlled spread, bounced an echo off the underside of the ice—if any actually lay overhead—and determined the distance between the top of the sail and the frozen ceiling of the sea. It was standard equipment on every ship that might possibly be called upon—on rare occasions, if ever—to pass under the icecap in order to fulfill its duties or to escape an enemy vessel.
“One hundred sixty feet, sir.”
The stylus on the surface Fathometer wiggled back and forth on a continuous drum of graph paper. The black band that it drew was steadily growing wider.
“Ice overhead. One hundred eighty feet.”
The ice continued to recede above them.
It made no sense.
The squawk box above the command pad hissed and crackled. The voice that issued from it was gruff by nature and metallic, as all voices were that passed through the intercom. The torpedo officer reported news that Nikita Gorov had hoped never to hear at any depth. Let alone at seven hundred forty feet: “Captain, our forward bulkhead is sweating.”
Everyone in the control room stiffened. Their attention had been riveted on the ice reports and on the sonar readings, because the greatest danger had seemed to be that they would ram into a long stalactite of ice hanging from the bottom of the berg. The torpedo officer’s warning was an unnerving reminder that they had collided with an unknown mass of drift ice before initiating a crash dive and that they were more than seven hundred feet beneath the surface, where every square inch of the hull was under brutal pressure. Millions upon millions of tons of seawater lay between them and the world of sky and sun and open air that was their true home.
Pulling down an overhead microphone, Gorov said, “Captain to torpedo room. There’s dry insulation behind the bulkhead.”
The squawk box was now the center of interest, as the diving gauge had been a moment ago. “Yes, sir. But it’s sweating just the same. The insulation behind it must be wet now.”
Evidently they had sustained a dangerous amount of damage when they had collided with that floe ice. “Is there much water?”
“just a sweat, sir. Just a film.”
“Where did you find it?”
The torpedo officer said, “Along the weld between number four tube and number five tube.”
“Any buckling?”
“No, sir.”
“Watch it closely,” Gorov said.
“I’ve got eyes for nothing else, sir.”
Gorov let go of the microphone, and it sprang back up out of the way.
Zhukov was at the command pad. “We could change course, sir.”
“No.”
Gorov knew what his first officer was thinking. They were passing under the length of the iceberg, with half of it—at least two fifths of a mile—still ahead of them. To port and starboard, however, open water could be found in two or three hundred yards, for the width of the berg was substantially less than its length. Changing course seemed reasonable, but it would be a waste of effort.
Gorov said, “By the time we could bring the boat around and to port or starboard, we’d have passed under the iceberg’s stern and would be in open water anyway. Hold tight, Lieutenant.”
“All right, sir.”
“Rudder amidships, and keep it that way unless the current begins to push us around.”
The operator seated at the surface Fathometer announced. “Ice overhead. Two hundred fifty feet.”
The mystery of the receding ice again.
They were not descending. And Gorov knew damned well that the iceberg above them was not magically levitating out of the sea. So why was the distance between them steadily widening?
“Should we take her up, sir?” Zhukov suggested. “A little closer to the ice. If we ascend even to just six hundred feet, that torpedo-room bulkhead might stop sweating. The pressure would be considerably less.”